Principal Investment Strategy
The Trust seeks to provide current income with the potential for capital appreciation by investing in dividend-paying stocks of U.S.- listed companies along with shares of exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”) that invest substantially all of their assets in fixed-income securities.
The Sponsor, with the assistance of Guggenheim Partners Investment Management, LLC (“GPIM”), an affiliate of Guggenheim Partners, LLC, has selected the securities to be included in the Trust’s portfolio. The common stocks in the Trust are selected according to the quantitatively-selected US High Dividend Strategy described below. The U.S.-listed common stocks held the Trust may include the common stocks of U.S. and non-U.S. companies of small-, mid- or large-capitalizations. The non-U.S. companies may be companies located in emerging markets. Certain of the common stocks included in the Trust portfolio are issued by real estate investment Trusts (“REITs”).
The Sponsor and GPIM believe that companies that distribute significant dividends on a consistent basis generally demonstrate strong financial strength and positive performance relative to their peers. The common stocks selected according to the US High Dividend Strategy will constitute approximately 50% of the Trust portfolio.
Shares of ETFs that invest substantially all of their assets in fixed-income securities will make up the remaining 50% of the Trust portfolio. The fixed-income ETFs may invest in all types of fixed-income securities, including but not limited to mortgage-backed securities, senior loans, municipal bonds, Treasury bonds, preferred securities and floating rate securities. The fixed-income ETFs included in the portfolio invest in a wide range of debt securities rated investment-grade through below investment-grade. High-yield, below investment-grade securities or “junk” bonds are considered to be speculative and are subject to greater market and credit risks than investment-grade securities.
The fixed-income ETFs included in the portfolio will invest in debt securities with short-term, medium-term and long-term maturities. Typically fixed-income securities with longer periods before maturity are more sensitive to interest rate changes.
Finally, the fixed-income ETFs included in the portfolio will also invest in debt securities issued by foreign companies, including companies located in emerging markets.
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Selection Criteria
US High Dividend Strategy
Approximately 50% of the Trust portfolio will constitute the common stocks selected according to the US High Dividend Strategy. These stocks were selected on October 13, 2021 (the “Security Selection Date”) using the security selection rules described below.
Security Selection Rules:
In constructing the common stock component of the Trust’s portfolio, securities will be selected based on the following fundamentally based quantitative criteria:
- Initial Universe: Begin with the universe of all stocks issued by large-, mid- and small-capitalization companies that trade on one of the three major U.S. exchanges (New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq or NYSE American) and that are designated as a U.S. company by the Morningstar US Market Index as of the Security Selection Date.
- Rank on Fundamentals: Rank every company identified in the initial universe against other companies in the same sector, as defined by Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS). Each ranking is determined as of the Security Selection Date using the most recently reported information and uses a scale of 1 through 10 (1 representing the highest scoring 10% in the sector and 10 representing the lowest scoring 10% in the sector):
- Return on assets as provided by S&P Compustat, and calculated as latest four quarters of reported operating income divided by the average of most recent reported total assets and year ago reported total assets.
- Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for the latest four quarters divided by enterprise value, as provided by S&P Compustat. Enterprise value is determined by adding the equity market capitalization as of the most recent closing price with the total outstanding long term and short term debt as determined by the most recently available balance sheet, and then subtracting any cash and short term investments as determined by the most recently available balance sheet.
- Year-over-year growth in sales per share, as provided by S&P Compustat. Trailing year-over-year growth is the percentage change in sales per-share for the trailing 12 months versus the sales per-share from the prior 12 months. Sales per-share is the trailing 12 months of sales from the most recent trailing quarterly or semi-annual filings, whichever is most current, divided by the end of period reported count of common shares outstanding used to calculate basic earnings per share.
Each financial metric will create a separate score so that every company will have three scores. These three scores are averaged together to create one composite score for a company. This composite score is used to rank the companies in the next step in order to determine the sub-universe of securities.
- Define Sub-Universe: Reduce the initial universe of securities to a sub-universe that meets the following requirements, with each requirement being applied independently to the initial universe from the other requirements in this step, as of the Security Selection Date:
- Exclude the lowest ranked 25% of securities from the initial universe determined by the average of the three financial rankings described in step 2.
- Exclude the 20% of the initial universe with the lowest trailing six month total return.
- Exclude securities which do not have a policy of regular periodic cash dividends (quarterly, semiannual or yearly), or have omitted the most recent regular periodic cash dividend.
- Exclude securities with a market capitalization less than $200 million. Market capitalization is determined by the closing price as of the Security Selection Date.
- Exclude securities with a liquidity of less than $0.6 million. Liquidity is determined by the median trading volume in U.S. dollars looking back 90 days from the Security Selection Date (i.e., trading volume each day in shares multiplied by the closing price for the day as provided by FactSet Research Systems, Inc.).
- Exclude business development companies as identified by Bloomberg Industry Classification System sub-industry.
- Exclude mortgage real estate investment Trusts, as identified by GICS sub-industry.
- Exclude securities that have a pending cash or stock merger and acquisition or bankruptcy which will lead to delisting the security. Such events will be determined by reviewing the announced merger and acquisition data from Bloomberg.
- Exclude securities that are not one of the largest 500 companies of the initial universe by market capitalization (per FactSet).
- Selection: Select from the sub-universe the 25 top dividend yielding securities (with higher rank given to larger market capitalization when yields are equal) and equally weight these securities as of the Security Selection Date so that each security represents 2% of the total Trust portfolio. Selected securities must adhere to following strategy limits as of the Security Selection Date:
- Maximum 20% weight in any GICS sector.
- Minimum 80% in U.S. incorporated companies.
Once an investment limitation has been reached, additional securities of the type that would violate the limitation will not be included in the Trust and the next highest yielding security will be used.
Please note that due to the fluctuating nature of security prices, the weighting of an individual security or sector in the Trust portfolio may change after the Security Selection Date.
Fixed-Income Exchange-Traded Funds
Approximately 50% of the Trust portfolio will constitute ETFs that invest substantially all of their assets in fixed-income securities. The Sponsor, with the assistance of GPIM, has selected fixed-income ETFs believed to have the best potential for current income as well as total return given the Sponsor's outlook on rates and credit spreads. When selecting the ETFs for the Trust, the Sponsor considers a number of factors, including but not limited to, the size, liquidity and daily trading volume, the current dividend yield, the strategy and investment objective, the fixed-income securities held by the ETF, the expense ratio and the overlap of the underlying fixed-income securities held by the ETFs.
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Risks and Other Considerations
As with all investments, you may lose some or all of your investment in the Trust. No assurance can be given that the Trust’s investment objective will be achieved. The Trust also might not perform as well as you expect. This can happen for reasons such as these:
- Securities prices can be volatile. The value of your investment may fall over time. Market value fluctuates in response to various factors. These can include stock market movements, purchases or sales of securities by the Trust, government policies, litigation, and changes in interest rates, inflation, the financial condition of the securities’ issuer or even perceptions of the issuer. Changes in legal, political, regulatory, tax and economic conditions may cause fluctuations in markets and securities prices, which could negatively impact the value of the Trust. Additionally, event such war, terrorism, natural and environmental disasters and the spread of infectious illnesses or other public health emergencies may adversely affect the economy, various markets and issuers. Recently, the outbreak of a novel and highly contagious form of coronavirus (“COVID-19”) has adversely impacted global commercial activity and contributed to significant volatility in certain markets. Many governments and businesses have instituted quarantines and closures, which has resulted in significant disruption in manufacturing, supply chains, consumer demand and economic activity. The potential impacts are increasingly uncertain, difficult to assess and impossible to predict, and may result in significant losses. Any adverse event could materially and negatively impact the value and performance of Trust and the Trust’s ability to achieve its investment objectives. Units of the Trust are not deposits of any bank and are not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other government agency.
- Securities selected according to this strategy may not perform as intended. The Trust is exposed to additional risk due to its policy of investing in accordance with an investment strategy. Although the Trust's investment strategy is designed to achieve the Trust's investment objective, the strategy may not prove to be successful. The investment decisions may not produce the intended results and there is no guarantee that the investment objective will be achieved.
- The Trust invests in shares of ETFs. ETFs are investment pools that hold other securities. The ETFs in the Trust may be passively-managed index funds that seek to replicate the performance or composition of a recognized securities index. ETFs are subject to various risks, including management’s ability to meet the fund’s investment objective. Shares of ETFs may trade at a premium or discount from their net asset value in the secondary market. If the Trust has to sell an ETF share when the share is trading at a discount, the Trust will receive a price that is less than the ETF’s net asset value. This risk is separate and distinct from the risk that the net asset value of the ETF shares may decrease. The amount of such discount from net asset value is subject to change from time to time in response to various factors. The underlying ETF has management and operating expenses. Consequently, you will bear not only your share of your Trust’s expenses, but also the expenses of the underlying ETFs. By investing in ETFs, the Trust incurs greater expenses than you would incur if you invested directly in the ETFs.
- The ETFs are subject to annual fees and expenses, including a management fee. Unitholders of the Trust will bear these fees in addition to the fees and expenses of the Trust. See “Fees and Expenses” for additional information.
- The Trust is subject to an ETF’s index correlation risk. To the extent that an underlying ETF is an index tracking ETF, index correlation risk is the risk that the performance of an ETF will vary from the actual performance of the fund’s target index, known as “tracking error.” This can happen due to fund expenses, transaction costs, market impact, corporate actions (such as mergers and spin-offs) and timing variances.
- The value of the fixed-income securities in the ETFs will generally fall if interest rates, in general, rise. Typically, fixed-income securities with longer periods before maturity are more sensitive to interest rate changes. The Trust may be subject to greater risk of rising interest rates than would normally be the case due to the current period of historically low rates.
- An ETF or an issuer of securities held by an ETF may be unwilling or unable to make principal payments and/or to declare distributions in the future, may call a security before its stated maturity, or may reduce the level of distributions declared. Issuers may suspend distributions during the life of the Trust. This may result in a reduction in the value of your units.
- The financial condition of an ETF or an issuer of securities held by an ETF may worsen, resulting in a reduction in the value of your units. This may occur at any point in time, including during the primary offering period.
- Economic conditions may lead to limited liquidity and greater volatility. The markets for fixed-income securities, such as those held by certain ETFs, may experience periods of illiquidity and volatility. General market uncertainty and consequent repricing risk have led to market imbalances of sellers and buyers, which in turn have resulted in significant valuation uncertainties in a variety of fixed-income securities. These conditions resulted, and in many cases continue to result in, greater volatility, less liquidity, widening credit spreads and a lack of price transparency, with many debt securities remaining illiquid and of uncertain value. These market conditions may make valuation of some of the securities held by an ETF uncertain and/or result in sudden and significant valuation increases or declines in its holdings.
- Certain ETFs held by the Trust invest in bonds that are rated below investment-grade and are considered to be “junk” securities. Below investment-grade obligations are considered to be speculative and are subject to greater market and credit risks, and accordingly, the risk of nonpayment or default is higher than with investment-grade securities. In addition, such securities may be more sensitive to interest rate changes and more likely to receive early returns of principal in falling rate environments.
- Certain ETFs held by the Trust may invest in bonds that are rated as investment-grade by only one rating agency. As a result, such split-rated securities may have more speculative characteristics and are subject to a greater risk of default than securities rated as investment-grade by more than one rating agency.
- The Trust invests in securities issued by mid-capitalization companies and certain ETFs held by the Trust may invest in securities issued by small-capitalization and/or mid-capitalization companies. These securities customarily involve more investment risk than securities of large-capitalization companies. Small-capitalization and mid-capitalization companies may have limited product lines, markets or financial resources and may be more vulnerable to adverse general market or economic developments.
- The Trust may be susceptible to potential risks through breaches in cybersecurity. A breach in cybersecurity refers to both intentional and unintentional events that may cause the Trust to lose proprietary information, suffer data corruption or lose operational capacity. Such events could cause the Sponsor of the Trust to incur regulatory penalties, reputational damage, additional compliance costs associated with corrective measures and/or financial loss. In addition, cybersecurity breaches of the Trust’s third-party service providers, or issuers in which the Trust invests, can also subject the Trust to many of the same risks associated with direct cybersecurity breaches.
- The Trust is subject to risks arising from various operational factors and their service providers. Operational factors include, but not limited to, human error, processing and communication errors, errors of the Trust’s service providers, counterparties or other third-parties, failed or inadequate processes and technology or systems failures. Additionally, the Trust may be subject to the risk that a service provider may not be willing or able to perform their duties as required or contemplated by their agreements with the Trust. Although the Trust seeks to reduce these operational risks through controls and procedures, there is no way to completely protect against such risks.
- Share prices or dividend rates on the securities in the Trust may decline during the life of the Trust. There is no guarantee that share prices of securities in the Trust will not decline and that the issuers of the securities will declare dividends in the future and, if declared, whether they will remain at current levels or increase over time.
- Inflation may lead to a decrease in the value of assets or income from investments.
- The Sponsor does not actively manage the portfolio. The Trust will generally hold, and may, when creating additional units, continue to buy, the same securities even though a security’s outlook, market value or yield may have changed.
See “Investment Risks” in Part A of the prospectus and “Risk Factors” in Part B of the prospectus for additional information.
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